Western Alberta, Canadian Rockies

You might be wondering, why up close ?

It’s simple.

I was without a telephoto lens.

This quickly became a nightmare. I was caught with gear to shoot mountains and ran into some of those mountain’s residents. I had to quickly work with what I had to get the best shots that I could.

There were several cars at a halt on the road as a herd of bighorn sheep wandered across the road and up a mountain; all of them looking somewhat lost. It was the first time my wife had seen an actual mountain too; and bighorn. Who’s to say I wasn’t trying to get the best photo of these goats just for her keepsake? I wanted to seize the opportunity to capture a few great shots of the Alberta provincial animal.

It may be the provincial animal, but it is not a common animal to see.

My initial reaction (like most people) was to grab my camera; I had a Canon 1500 D with me. My wife and I bought this camera for it being a great travel, lightweight DSLR. I was still in the car at this point, as the temperature outside was hovering around -20 degrees Celsius. I lowered the window and zoomed in as far as I could with my 55mm lens.

You could imagine my disappointment…

In order to get a close up photo of these mountain goats, I needed to get up closer. I jumped out of the car and hurried over to the herd. They seemed harmless; that was until I got too close to (what looked like) the leader of the herd. I knew that I had to hurry myself once he tilted his head (and horns) towards me, as though he was warning me to keep my distance before ramming.

I was able to snap a few neat shots, less than 1 meter away from the herd. Whilst I wouldn’t recommend changing your camera settings in front of a herd of wild bighorns, my only advice would be to always have a telephoto lens to avoid getting too close to any animal that could do harm to you.

It was a great experience, nonetheless, and my wife adores the up close snaps. It took about 48 hours after this experience for me to have a 55-250mm lens in my kit. Lesson learned; have gear for every possible situation and if you need to photograph bighorn sheep up close, wear a cup.